title: The flexibility of 12-month-olds' preferences for phonologically appropriate object labels.
abstract: We explored 12-month-olds' flexibility in accepting phonotactically illegal or ill-formed word forms in a modified associative-learning task. Sixty-four English-learning infants were presented with a training phase that either clarified the purpose of a sound-object association task or left the task ambiguous. Infants were then habituated to sets of Czech words with onsets that are illegal in English (e.g., ptak), consonantal sounds (e.g., /l/), or novel functionlike words (e.g., iv). When infants were provided with a training phase that highlighted the purpose of the task, they associated the phonotactically illegal Czech words, but not the consonantal sounds or novel functionlike words, with objects. Thus, English-learning 12-month-old infants' flexibility in associating various sound forms with novel objects is limited to labels that share the structural shape of well-formed nounlike words.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Heather K
authors.initials: HK
authors.lastname: MacKenzie
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Susan A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Graham
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Suzanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Curtin
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology.
authors.forename: Stephanie L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Archer
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001245:Association Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D015982:Bias; D005260:Female; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D010700:Phonetics; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D014825:Vocabulary